(.net) technology and society

February 06, 2008

Top 5 Tips for Hosting a Customer Community

Brian Oberkirch of Small Good Thing moderated a wide-ranging exploration of customer service communities at yesterday's Customer Service is the New Marketing summit. (Flickr photo by dougfl07.) Matt Mullenweg of Automattic summed up the panel's threads well with a single metaphor: If
everyone showed up to your house for a party, would you stay away?
Probably not. You'd stay at home, make sure that everyone had a drink,
keep weirdos from doing strange things off in the corner, and herd
guests into the right room given their numbers and general mood.

How does this simple concept apply to hosting a customer community? Based on the panel discussion, I've brought together these 5 key success factors:

1. Follow the community's lead on how to participate.

Tara Hunt of Citizen Agency works with clients (including both Timbuk2 and Get Satisfaction)
to navigate community creation or engagement. (Often, the best customer
community is the one that a company joins, rather than one that it
creates itself.) Tara notes that "it takes time to learn how to
participate in a community and learn from discussions. It's a change to
be part of the community, rather than an outside observer or an owner.
Human beings are messy, and communities can't be planned or
strategized."

The bag company Timbuk2 is a great example of this practice in
action. Timbuk2 is a San Francisco brand, and it shows: high
customization,
strong personal identity, and a networked group of avid users. Patti
Roll of Timbuk2 notes that her customers are 'highly activated' - which
basically means that they really like to talk about their Timbuk2 bags
- and that she's been surprised by the depth and intensity of community
conversations that existed long before the company became involved.

By following her community's lead in creating company engagement,
Roll has had an extremely successful experience in creating customer
relationships. Timbuk2 had its own a-ha moment over one production
weekend: a customer became
irate when his Friday custom bag order had gone into Saturday
production, and it could no longer be
cancelled. Though the company wasn't online on a Saturday, other
customers were - and they rose to the company's defense.

2. Talk like a normal person.

Customer service representatives often have trouble remaining a
normal person when interacting with someone using their company's
products and services. Speaking for users, Hunt commented that
"sounding less human, or acting mediocre, doesn't
make you sound more professional. It's OK for a brand to have a point
of view, and it's OK to not appeal to everyone."

Fortunately, the pervasiveness of social networking is breaking down
the boundaries between
personal and professional personas. Social media gurus believe that
this will contribute to the 're-humanizing' of customer service.

3. Engage in conversations early.

Gina Bianchini of Ning called out that the earlier you're in a conversation, the easier it
is to change its tone. If someone has an urgent Ning problem and it isn't
addressed early, then the community will pile on. On the other hand, if
the issue is addressed right away, then the conversation remains
constructive and there's a positive ripple effect for the brand. People will feel like they're talking to a person, rather than at a company.

4. Give your community a pressure valve.

Mullenweg is keenly aware of the gap between people who submit ideas, and those who
actually write code and patches. To close this, WordPress created a
place where people could submit ideas and vote on them. This gave the
community a pressure valve. By having a single forum for the community to express their opinions,
rather than spouting off on scattered blogs, the company could both consolidate its engagement efforts and
the community's voice. By coming together as one community, Wordpress
customers became aware of the diversity of feedback that the company
was getting, and became engaged in understanding the tradeoffs that
were being made.

5. Actively manage tension between company vision and community feedback

Communities won't just be about
problems - they'll also be about driving new people in, how
to make the brand better, how to inspire around your brand, and how to
educate
around your product. But what about when the community is wrong, when
its feedback is inconsistent with the company's core vision, or if a
few of its members are trolls?

Mullenweg feels that the hardest thing to do in a community is to
ask someone to leave. But if you have a toxic community, it's necessary
- better to lose one than to lose them all.

The panelists agreed that the noble thing to do is what your users
tell you, but in reality, you're going to stick with your core vision.
Bianchini also balances this feedback against the company culture,
because it's essential to keep your own team motivated. Companies need
to keep an eye on what affects user experience for the
most users, not just the community users. Or as Tara put it, "Listen to
experts, but design for novices."

Comments

Top 5 Tips for Hosting a Customer Community

Brian Oberkirch of Small Good Thing moderated a wide-ranging exploration of customer service communities at yesterday's Customer Service is the New Marketing summit. (Flickr photo by dougfl07.) Matt Mullenweg of Automattic summed up the panel's threads well with a single metaphor: If
everyone showed up to your house for a party, would you stay away?
Probably not. You'd stay at home, make sure that everyone had a drink,
keep weirdos from doing strange things off in the corner, and herd
guests into the right room given their numbers and general mood.

How does this simple concept apply to hosting a customer community? Based on the panel discussion, I've brought together these 5 key success factors: